BICEP has released analysis of data acquired from February 2006 to September 2007 at the Amundsen Scott South Pole Research Station which comprises approximately half of BICEP’s total data acquired over three observing seasons. We have set the first CMB polarization-only limit on the amount of gravitational wave radiation in the early universe. Click here for a link to the paper and here for a link to supplemental data from BICEP.

Commissioning of BICEP (2005)

CBS News Video of BICEP (2008)

“We measure the E-mode angular power spectrum with high precision at 21 ≤ ℓ ≤ 335, detecting for the first time the peak expected at ℓ ∼ 140. The measured E -mode spectrum is consistent with expectations from a ΛCDM model, and the B-mode spectrum is consistent

with zero. The tensor-to-scalar ratio derived from the B-mode spectrum or r < 0.73 at 95% confidence, the first

meaningful constraint on the inflationary gravitational wave background to come directly from CMB B-mode polarization.”

The unique observational imprint of primordial gravitational waves on CMB polarization was first predicted by Prof. Alexander Polnarev (QMUL). The paper,  "Polarization and Anisotropy Induced in the Microwave Background by Cosmological Gravitational Waves", published in Soviet Astronomy (1985), is available by clicking the link above.